Broad wage hike better.

Byline: The Register-Guard

If the aim is to stick a thumb in Wal-Mart's eye, Chicago has succeeded admirably. If the goal is to increase workers' wages, the city has taken only a small step, and that marginal advance came at the expense of fairness. The lowest-paid workers in Chicago and the rest of the country deserve a raise - through a general increase in the minimum wage, not through selective mandates.

On Wednesday, the Chicago City Council passed an ordinance requiring "big box" stores to pay their workers at least $10 an hour, plus $3 an hour worth of benefits such as health insurance. The law applies to retailers with stores measuring 90,000 square feet or larger, and those with annual revenues of $1 billion or more. The law takes full effect in 2008, and affects 35 stores belonging to such companies as Sears, Toys "R" Us and Home Depot. The primary target is Wal-Mart, which is opening its first Chicago store in September and, before Wednesday's vote, had plans to build more.

The only justification offered for singling out large retailers is that they're presumed to have deep pockets - but floor space correlates poorly with the ability to pay higher wages. Some retailers affected by the Chicago law, such as Kmart, have had trouble staying in business. Many retailers with stores that are smaller have bigger profit margins, as do many other types of businesses. Except for the big box stores, however, Chicago employers will continue to pay their workers as little as $6.50 an hour, the minimum wage in Illinois.

The Chicago ordinance resembles a law passed earlier in Maryland that was tailored to penalize Wal-Mart, and only Wal-Mart, for paying too little for employee health insurance. A judge struck down the Maryland law earlier this month; Chicago's ordinance may be similarly vulnerable. Both look more like at- tempts to punish particular companies for their size than efforts to increase wages or improve health care. The stores that are victims of such punishment are politically unpopular, except with the people who work and shop in them.

Low wages are a real problem for the employees of some large retailers. The problem is no less serious for employees of low-paying small retailers, or of other types of businesses. The solution is to raise the minimum wage, as Oregon, Illinois and 20 other states have done. If the Illinois rate of $6.50 an hour isn't enough for a worker at Wal-Mart, it's not enough for the employee in the restaurant across the street or the office around the corner. General increases in the minimum wage benefit all low-wage workers, without singling out one type of business for punitive treatment.

An even better solution would be to raise the federal minimum wage of $5.15 an hour, a rate that has remained unchanged since 1998. Since the last increase the minimum wage has lost 20 percent of its purchasing power; after adjusting for inflation, the federal minimum wage is at its lowest level since 1955.

Congress recently defeated a proposal to raise the rate to $7.25 an hour, thereby letting slip an opportunity to reduce poverty, ease demands for social services and promote basic fairness. That's a more appealing political agenda than using a wage increase as a means of slapping just one type of employer.